


Sorrow

by fajrdrako



Category: Vorkosigan novels by Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fajrdrako/pseuds/fajrdrako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aral and Ges, and Aral's regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> [Theatrical Muse prompt #213](http://community.livejournal.com/theatrical_muse/11111859.html) \- "There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it." - E. M. Forster, A Room With A View.

I might have loved Ges Vorrutyer, deeply and forever, if it hadn't been for the fear in his servant's eyes.

I didn't understand it at first.  My initial infatuation took a while to wear off; Ges was bright, witty, beautiful, brave - might have been the perfect soldier.  But the sense of having found a soulmate was wearing off.  We liked different books, we had different friends, we had different attitudes towards women.  In the normal course of life, none of this might have mattered. It wasn't as if there was a likelihood of living together - not in Barrayar, not in those days.  To some extent, my rank and connections protected us: no one was going to bring shame on the son of Piotr Vorkosigan, who happened to be favoured by the Emperor.  Those were dangerous waters.

Meanwhile I was so busy serving the Emperor that I had precious little time with Ges, and what time we had together was spent in sex.  He was shameless and insatiable.  So was I.  For days or weeks at a time we only saw each other in formal, public situations.  By the time we got together with time to be alone, our imaginations and our hormones had us frantic with desire.

He had a vivid imagination.  Some of our fantasies were bolder than I'd encountered before - at first, that was exciting.  I'd had enough of domination and submission, one way or another, on duty: it didn't strike me as an interesting game, until Ges brought me to it with his shining eyes and enticing body.  Then it excited me.

Until he went too far. He had this fantasy - some scenario about women, and rape, and hurting them in ways I wouldn't want to think about, let alone voice.  Deflated, I stepped away from him, hardly believing what I heard.  I knew many soldiers were callous about women, but this went beyond coldness, this was a burning pleasure in thoughts of abuse that horrified me much as they excited him.  Laughing, he changed the subject, pretended it was a joke, and he soon had my interest again.

He knew better, after that, than to share these thoughts. But they were part of him, hidden under the surface, covered over by his sweet smile and innocent eyes.  That one slip was enough to open my eyes to things I had missed before - callousness with subordinates, for example. Not brutality but a cunning that evoked their fear in casual and mundane circumstances, because he had power over them. 

It thrilled him, that they feared him. He didn't even need to touch them to get the rush.  They way they would look at him, hiding the urge to flinch, because they knew what he might do, what he wanted to -

I was trying to figure out why.  I never found an answer.  Fear excited him. Pain excited him.  His private fantasies were no place I wanted to visit.

Even then, I might have made excuses for him.  It might be a reaction to the pressures we were under. It might be a phase he was going through. It might be the result of a difficult upbringing, or genetic flaw.  I might be exaggerating in my mind, because love is blind, and sometimes preys on fears.

But I was not exaggerating, and the rift grew between us.

Our affair ended the night he was weaving some elaborate fantasy involving the rape and torture of a serving boy.  The room was lit, and I looked at his beautiful aroused body, and his dark and lustrous eyes, and I realized that this was not just a sick imagination. This was memory.  Somewhere, somehow, he had done these things to a boy who could not defend himself.

I rose and dressed, unable to look at him. "Don't take it so seriously," he said.  "It's just a game."

"It's human suffering," I said.  My voice was rough.

He tried to cajole me back, but I pushed him aside and left him bedroom without even hearing him.   His batman stood to attention as I entered the hallway, and saluted me.  He was a teen, his face old beyond his years, and I wondered: does Ges beat you?  Does he just use psychological abuse, offering alternate approval and disgrace?  Do the beatings and the initimidation get worse?  Does he give you no room to escape, because of his power over your life?  Will he destroy you, using the Vor privilege and his military rank to do so with impunity?

He did not speak. I did not speak - what could I have said?  I could not save him from Ges, and if I could, there would be another to take his place. I could not change the world. 

I nodded to him, and left the room.

It was time for me to escape, before Ges used his power to consume me.  
[\- - -](http://community.livejournal.com/theatrical_muse/11111859.html)


End file.
